Could your business qualify for a grant of up to $10,000 from the City of Sydney to use towards achieving your NABERS energy or water ratings?
Businesses within the City of Sydney’s local government area have an opportunity to secure a grant of up to $10,000 to use towards getting their NABERS energy or water ratings.
This is a great opportunity to take action on creating a sustainable building or workplace, with additional grants also available for EarthCheck or GreenStar performance certification, energy audits and grid connection feasibility for solar PV.
At Nutbrook, our four NABERS assessors complete upwards of 50 assessments a year and, in our experience, the most successful organisations follow these five important steps:
1. Commit to it
If, when you think of NABERS, you’re hoping to just tick that box, get the t-shirt and pat yourself on the back, you should forget it and invest your energy elsewhere. NABERS is a mindset shift. It’s about taking responsibility for the environmental debris your building or office leaves in the community that you live and work in. It’s about knowing there’s a better way to do things and digging your heels in to get it done.
That kind of achievement needs the whole organisation to take a pledge of support, especially senior leadership.
2. Set targets
Targets are important, they give you direction; something to work towards and a collective vision for everyone to rally behind. Achieving your desired NABERS rating involves planning that’s often made up of incremental and phased improvements.
Understand your baseline position and establish the capital expenditure you’re willing to commit to implementing the energy, water, waste and indoor environment improvements you need to achieve the result you’re after.
3. Complete an audit
What’s the first thing you do when you’re planning a holiday? You figure out where you’re going to start from, right. It’s the same with NABERS. If you’re serious about understanding how efficient your water, energy, waste and indoor environments are, audit them. Know your starting point.
4. Have an eye for detail
One of the most common mistakes organisations make when going for their NABERS rating is a lack of clear and orderly documentation. Be meticulous about maintaining service drawings and schedules and sub-metering data and review them regularly. There’s no point measuring something if you’re not going to monitor it.
5. Start with the easy stuff
Every morning during training, US Navy Seals are judged on how they make their bed. In a speech to University of Texas graduates in 2014, former Navy Commander, Admiral William H. McRaven told the class, “the wisdom of this simple act has been proven to me many times over.”
“If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride. And it will encourage you to do another, and another…”*. Start will the small stuff and do it right. The little victories will help motivate you to achieve something bigger and greater.
To learn more about the grants available from the City of Sydney, visit their website. Applications are open until 5:00pm November 20, 2017.
If you’d like to chat to us about how you can achieve your NABERS rating, contact us via email or call 02 9460 2576.
What is NABERS
It stands for the National Australian Built Environment Rating System and it measures the environmental performance of buildings, tenancies and homes in this expansive and diverse nation of ours. NABERS focuses on how the energy efficiency, water usage, waste management and indoor environment quality of a building or tenancy impact the environment by using a star rating scale from one (poor) to six (market leading). To learn more about NABERS, visit their website.
What is GreenStar
Launched in 2003, Green Star is Australia’s only national and voluntary rating system for buildings and communities. It aims to help building owners, managers and occupants create a more sustainable environment by using its best practice framework for the planning, design, construction and operation of buildings and communities. To learn more about GreenStar, visit the Green Building Council of Australia’s website.
*”Adm. McRaven urges graduates to find courage to change the world”, UTNews, May 16, 2014
